Sex Perhaps

Kathryn Starbuck

A half century ago I was a welcoming port of call in

a buoyant（轻快的） place, a person to drop in on or

drop out of, adrift in a private sea of stormy

inwardness, trying to love myself with

conviction. The only ideas to reach my calm outer

deck fell off my young lovers' backs as they

unburdened themselves.

They sought authenticity, oblivion, and an exportable

knowledge. They had aspirations. They

wanted to become painters or poets or -- two of

them -- painters and poets, eager to face

a decade or lifetime of envy and disappointment.

Why do you aspire（渴望，追求）, I asked, don't you know,

silly boys, that either you are or you aren't?

They weren't. Neither was I. Oh how complacent

I was in my ignorant omnipotence（全能）: float to

sea with me, I urged, where we can embody no plan,

no hope, achieve nothing worth dying or

living for except perhaps the melancholy luster

of delicious duty-free hand-me-down trips

to bed and back.

Did I know then that in a flash we'd be ancient,

that we'd be tending shrines and gardens

and graves? Did I not know then that the honey we'd

so innocently spread would attract the mob

intellect of fire ants to bedevil（使痛苦，虐待） us in the night? How

did I know I'd outlive us all to become, at

last, a port of call I've come to call my own?